After viewing our two minute film sequence for the final time, I’m very pleased with the overall outcome. We decided upon making an American teen comedy film such as the well loved “Breakfast club” ironically directed by John Hughes in 1985, ironic in the fact that I took up the role of director within our group. Our sequence is largely based on letting the audience get a firm grasp of the characters so they can get a good understanding for the film. Which is based upon three stereo typical ‘nerds’ who set themselves the challenge of getting themselves girlfriends, hence the name “A Long Shot”.
Being as though we were aiming to fit into the American teen comedy genre we thought it only right to film our production on our college campus, as many other films of the same genre such as “American Pie” released in 1999 by Paul Wietz and “Porkies” directed by Bob Clark in 1982 which is set in Angel Beach High school therefore we followed suit and carried on this convention. We also picked up on the fact that there are key locations included in each film so we decided to go along with this and made sure we included these popular venues such as the college refectory and computer rooms-this was also fittings seeing as though the characters are playing into a nerdy stereotype and there time would be well spent in on the computers. In order for the audience to understand the characters and the plot we had to introduce each character individually so the audience can connect with them and create a bond with them, so as director I took the executive decision for each character to have roughly a twenty second sequence all to themselves with the main character having slightly longer screen time to stamp his authority on the film, such as in “American Pie” where although there are a few key characters its based solely around one main character. The characters are all male and although we noticed this we thought in order to really get the characters personalities out and the fact they are socially incapable of speaking to most males let alone girls, a series of close ups and shot freezes also helped establish the characters on screen, in my directing I also tried to make sure that the main character was in the middle of each shot depicting that he is the leader of the gang.
Here are a few screen grabs of various shots within our film. You can see that Theodore is in the middle of the group as planned to show he is the main character and that the story revolves around him. The various shots such as the long shot situated in the bottom right corner implies that they are always far away from everything and never come close, as though they are kept in the distance and are unknown to most in college. The first three pictures show the characters each individually as you manage to put a face to a name.
In terms of adaption, a few keys bits of the film had to be cut and sequences reduced in order for the sequence to be on time- this is partly due to me as director trying to fit to much into a short space of time, so in a way the fact that we had to cut and re-chop helped make the sequence flow better and the two minutes worth of footage didn’t look crammed and too busy. The feedback was relatively mixed but one thing that I picked up on was and is now is a decision which I now frown upon is a sequence after the plot is revealed where the group stand up and run, we had shot an alternative to this and I think the wrong shots were picked and this let the overall sequence down and made it look slightly amateur and out of place. I know think what we should have stuck with was an attempted shot to bring the college life more into the film as when the group who were sitting down would jump up and the shot would have been frozen, and they would jump up in the manner as though they had just graduated such as in “American Pie” and the “Porky’s” in order to keep within the college, teen genre we had created. I don’t think that our technical skills haunted the overall two minute production, as some cuts and fades are a bit sketchy and look as though its been poorly edited, although I’m happy we didn’t include any zooms as I was strongly against this as it is very rarely seen in any films and although breaking conventions can be good if the fact that no directors opt for this kind of shot I decided to steer clear from it.
To conclude, I’m very pleased with the way are production has turned out, boasting a variety shots and generating a strong feel for an American teen film, which is the genre in which this film would be looking to be classed as. Feedback in the form of laughter is very up building as after all it was a comedy and being able to bring the audience to laughter, means to a certain extent that this has been achieved. However I still feel as thought that one shot towards the end of the sequence of the trio running, ruins the simplistic look and seems out of place and out of character. But in terms of changing the sequence if possible I would make sure the continuity flowed better as towards the end Theodore’s glasses seem to vanish and then re-appear again in the next shot. This lowers the quality and professionalism in the sequence and is a mistake that could have been easily avoided so I’m worked up about that particular flaw.
By Joshua Ryan Hughes
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